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This afternoon AMD has released the Catalyst 9.3 driver for Windows along with ADL, or the AMD Display Library. The AMD Display Library is a cross-platform library that provides a single SDK to access graphics hardware information. In the past AMD has provided a few SDKs for obtaining this information on Windows, but this is the first time we are seeing such support on Linux.

Reports are swirling that IBM is seeking to acquire Sun Microsystems for at least $6.5 billion. But if a deal happens, what does that mean for the future of Solaris, SPARC, MySQL and other technologies that overlap with IBM’s core product portfolio? The VAR Guy offers four predictions about the potential IBM/Sun combo. And yes, Linux dominates the conversation. Here's the scoop.

By Canonical's Bryce Harrington's account, AMD has delivered an ATI driver that should be compatible with the X Server 1.6 found in, among other places, Ubuntu 9.04.

If you run a dual-boot system with Linux and Windows, this has happened to you. You had to do your monthly reinstall of Windows, and now you don’t see the linux bootloader anymore, so you can’t boot into Ubuntu or whatever flavor of linux you prefer.

Gnome fans are today looking forward to the release of Gnome 2.26, the latest release of the popular desktop environment. New Gnome releases are always worthy of attention, particularly as they become the face of popular distributions such as Ubuntu and Fedora in the following months, but as a long-time user of Gnome there does seem to be less to be excited about than ever before. Sure, there are changes to the Gnome Media Player and some new icons and a little bit more polish, but it’s not the stuff that will have users falling over themselves to download a copy.

Linux is losing ground on the netbook front, but there lies opportunity for it in smaller, dedicated Internet-enabled appliances, said an Ovum analyst. Laurent Lachal, open source research director at the U.K.-based analyst firm, said in a research note, Linux is not doing as well in terms of market share, compared to when it made its debut on the netbook market.

IBM is reportedly in talks to buy Sun Microsystems for $6.5 billion and the deal is long overdue. The companies mesh on the open source software front, Sun is struggling and IBM can consolidate some server market share. First, the headlines. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that IBM could acquire Sun as early as this week (Techmeme). IBM would pay all cash for Sun. The Journal also reported that Sun has approached a number of large companies about an acquisition; a move that throws cold water on CEO Jonathan Schwartz’s everything is fine video.

This tutorial provides step-by-step instructions on how to install VMware Server 1.0.x (1.0.8 at the time of this writing) on an Ubuntu 8.10 desktop system. This is for those who prefer VMware Server 1.0.x over VMware Server 2.

Still in testing, Microsoft's Windows Azure Cloud went dark for nearly a day. The outage came as the Amazon Web service's cloud continued to attract more and more open source applications and customers, reports The VAR Guy.

CompuLabs is a month from shipping what may be the smallest, most energy-efficient PC ever. The Fit-PC2 is based on an Atom processor up to 1.6GHz, and can be ordered with Ubuntu 8.04 pre-installed on a 160GB SATA drive or SSD.

Well, helios is at it again, in an even, measured, and reasonable tone. WOW! Is that even possible? This time when confronted with proprietary software FUD, from private individuals, he asks some very pointed questions for them to answer about who they are and why are they so invested in the "product". Excellent links to sources about EULA's and their effects on users rights.

IBM is reportedly in talks to acquire Sun for a whopping $6.5 billion. At this early stage, its not known whether this is a rumor or just a fact. But just for the sake of argument let's consider what a powerhouse IBM Sun would be. In my opinion it would be a boon to both the Unix and Linux markets.

I bought myself a 4gb Freecom Databar for just a few quid and it was about this time I first tried the niftly little program I’d like to talk to you about today. It’s called unetbootin and people have been telling me how great it is for quite some time now, not being a USB stick owner myself - I’ve probably surrendered my last shred of geek cred with that confession - I hadn’t had much call to try it. There are various ways to put a Linux distribution on a USB stick and making it bootable, I don’t even think it’s that hard a process but I wanted something quick, easy and effective. That’s just what I got with this tool. One click and you can download an install image for the distro of your choice, copy it to your USB stick and make it bootable.

Medscribbler electronic medical record (EMR) uses handwriting recognition on a Tablet PC for a HIPAA compliant computerized medical practice and document management solution. CEOMike writes: We are about to release in this coming quarter Medscribbler Open Source, initially on Sourceforge, which will have both code and compiled downloads Screen shots, videos and no obligation online demos are available

The current economic downturn is set to drive Linux adoption, according to a white paper by research organization IDC. In a survey of 330 organizations with 100 or more employees, IDC found that 53 percent were planning to increase adoption of Linux on servers, while 48 percent were planning to increase Linux on clients, as a direct result of the economic climate. The survey was conducted in February, and the white paper published on Monday.

One of these days I'm going to learn to think a day in advance ;)

A little while ago, a friend of mine tapped me on the shoulder--virtually speaking--and asked me why there isn't an easier way to install software on a Linux computer. He asked innocently enough why we can't have a Universal Package Manager (UPM) to handle the software regardless of distribution. Ha! How could he be so naive?

The chief executive of HTC said his company, which was the first to launch an Android phone with the G1, will roll out at least three more this year. The HTC Magic is one; it's scheduled to be sold by Vodafone in Europe. What the others are isn't quite clear yet.

Inside of CUPS are several different groups of drivers: Foomatic, Gutenprint, and vendor-supplied drivers. This is why so many printers have several different driver options when you install a new printer. Unlike Windows, in Linux it is trivially easy to test the different drivers to see which one you like best-- in the CUPS Web interface, just select "Modify printer" to run through the installer again. You won't have to reboot or watch it gag and crash; it just works. Many printing problems are cured by using a different driver.

Predicting the far future is not possible, nobody could have foreseen the rise of the internet or what gigantic part communications would play in today's world. The not so far away future is also not predictable with absolute certainty. Many people do take a stand on the technology of the future though, and I think some things are just an add up of the technologies invented today. I like to contemplate the technology of the future and there are some things I think will be very important in the future of Linux. Following a small list of 5 technologies that will in my opinion shape the future of linux.